Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), a member of Qatar Foundation (QF) and Qatar Shell Research and Technology Centre (QSRTC), held the 11th Annual Undergraduate Research Experience Programme (UREP) competition yesterday.
This year, the competition included six oral presentations and eight poster presentations which were evaluated by an expert panel of judges and included nine projects from Qatar University (QU), three projects from Texas A&M University at Qatar (Tamuq) – a QF partner university – and one project each from University of Calgary in Qatar and Hamad Bin Khalifa University, a member of QF.
In the oral presentation category, QU won first place for the project, ‘Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Simulator for Patient Management Training at HMC,’ while Tamuq won second place for the project titled, ‘From Pore-Scale to Field-Scale Understanding of Multi-Phase Flow in Porous Media.’ Third place was secured by a team from QU for ‘Fabrication of H2S Sensors based on CuOx Nanoparticle Decorated Graphene.’ 
In the poster presentation category, Tamuq won first place with, ‘An Investigation of the Factors Affecting Barite Sagging Related to Drilling Fluid Properties,’ while QU secured second and third places respectively for projects titled, ‘Optimisation of Eggshell Membrane as a Novel Biosorbent for Remediation of Boron from Water: Mechanistic Studies,’ and ‘Computational Insights into the Mechanism of Palladium-Catalysed Alkylation of Aldehyde-Derived Hydrazones.’
The winning students were given prizes and awards in recognition of their achievement and hard work.
The competition is held annually to recognise outstanding projects of UREP – one of QNRF’s main funding programmes, specifically for undergraduate students in Qatar.
The programme aims to develop the nation’s research infrastructure by engaging students in various processes at building their research skills and contributing to their professional development, under the supervision of a mentor. Dr Abdul Sattar al-Taie, executive director, QNRF, said, “Over the years, undergraduate students have built on their UREP experience to pursue further education and develop their research to actively contribute towards the development of Qatar.
“We take special pride in the fact that more than 235 scientific publications have been generated in the past UREP cycles which include 20 book chapters, 105 journal papers, 38 online papers, and 73 conference papers.” 
Hussain Alhijji, vice president, QSRTC, said, “We believe R&D is a fundamental part of Shell’s past and future success. Therefore, we continue to invest in people, projects, and facilities and in the same spirit, Qatar Shell is co-funding this important competition. The UREP programme not only seeds the brilliant ideas from students and supports their development, but also acknowledges the mentoring professors and peers who constitute an important part of the participants’ academic journey.”